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Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

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Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#91

Post by dromtrund »

tredre3 wrote: post #42
asylteltine wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I restrict my esps to local network only absolutely no internet access for them. No trust for Chinese products from Chinese companies

> No trust for Chinese products from Chinese companies That's fair but Espressif is wayyyyyyy more open than ANY Western chip maker. The entire framework and toolchains are open-source for one thing. You get listings and sometimes pseudo-code for the internal ROMs (though no code). You get full access to datasheets, technical reference, and sdk documentation. Everything in their SDK is documented. You even get help o…

> Contrast that to the last time I worked with Nordic in a professional manner, I had to sign NDAs to get the full documentation and toolchain

That has to be at least 5 years ago, but even back then, 99% of their software was out in the open. Now, their SDK is open source, their official toolchain is based on the Linux Foundation's Zephyr toolchain and their docs are open and buildable. Their support is done on an open forum and complete data sheets are available both as PDFs and (with the exception of the nRF51) as web pages. They aren't allowed to publish their LTE stack because of operator licensing, their Bluetooth link layer is still distributed as a library and some upcoming SoCs aren't publicly available yet, but aside from this, they're as open as they can possibly be.

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#92

Post by mardifoufs »

lannisterstark wrote: post #87
mardifoufs wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not whatboutism when there's literally no proof that they are doing mass dragnet spying on western residents. And when we do have tons of proof of western governments doing exactly just that Again, it's a trendy buzzword to use but it literally isn't a catch all shield to argue that it's fine when we do it. When there's no proof of something happening, maybe we should focus on the thing that we know is happening…

How is "but they do it too" not whataboutism?

It's not they do it too, it's "they are the ones who do it". There is no "too" in this context for the average western user. Unless there's proof indicating otherwise.

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#93

Post by mardifoufs »

lannisterstark wrote: post #85
mardifoufs wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are the two not equivalent? If anything, for anyone living in the west it's probably less of an issue to have China spy on them than a western government. Sure, at a state security level it's not but for regular individuals I sure would rather have China spy on me since they can't do anything to me directly.

You have at least some civil rights in those countries, you don't in China. Be careful of a layover.

I mean, sure yeah don't go to China. That's a pretty solid advice. But again, that's irrelevant for the average western user. Even with civil rights, the potential to get hurt by a western government while living in the west is orders of magnitude more probable than getting anything from the CCP or China. But yeah don't do layovers in China if you are a dissident, though I don't think that's an especially common scenario

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#94

Post by RF_Savage »

dariosalvi78 wrote: post #83
RF_Savage wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is because of FCC certification requirements. Usually, if the end user can modify the lowlevel radio firmware on the device, the device looses it's FCC certification and cannot be sold in USA. It also seems that Espressif has bought their wifi IP, so their contracts and licensing terms with the IP vendor likely prevent any sharing. But FCC is the reason for closed binary blob firmware for all wifi radios out there…

I don't understand how the license affects certification TBH. As this post clearly shows users can implement their own stack if they really want to, it's not that the license is going to prevent them. Why can't one have an open source stack with specific builds that are approved, tested and certified?

They could, but somebody would have to write that FOSS wifistack. You could not run selfcompiled versions of the stack on any hardware that has been FCC certified, because if you could, the certs would be gone once again.

Wifi is shared spectrum and devices using are licenced to make sure they conform to the local regulations. One size does not fit all. For example 2.4GHz wifi channel 13 is legal in EU, but in USA it falls on a govt owned band. This is why companies like Mikrotik or Ubiquiti have specific hardware versions for USA. So that they verifiably cannot be set on illegal channels by the enduser.

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#95

Post by boffinAudio »

finnjohnsen2 wrote: post #13

I wasnt aware of this wifi blob. This feeds a tiny paranoia I have at the back of my head when dealing with esp32/espressif. I have dozens of esp32s around and I love them, but Espressif is 100% Chinese. Im uncomfortable with what I read that every company of significant size in China automatically requires CCP party members to be involved in the company at a high level. So Im very happy to hear people such as these…

Your paranoia about the Chinese is equally applicable to Americans, whose NSA has given itself carte-blanche to infiltrate any computing system it desires, for whatever reason, in total secrecy - without recourse for the public to address any wrongs.

So I'm not sure that framing your paranoia in terms of "the Chinese" is productive - you might just want to update that thought with "any state actor who operates covert torture sites and violates human rights at immense scale", in which case your set of actually hostile actors becomes a little more realistic.

The biggest threat to your freedom and human rights, as an American, is your own government.

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#96

Post by ale42 »

genter wrote: post #49
icpmacdo wrote: post #5

I can attest to the challenges of the section on Dynamic analysis on real hardware and the struggles of attenuating signal interference on the ESP. Anyone have a recommendation on conducting fabric for RF isolation as briefly mentioned in the article or resources on the subject of rf isolation/Faraday cages for microcontrollers?

Not directly answering your question, but on preventing emission in the first place (and the best video I've ever seen on electrical engineering): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySuUZEjARPY

Lots of very useful information here, thanks for the link! Actually there's some answer: as someone else already wrote in this thread, shields of cables must be soldered to the Faraday cage to prevent leakage.

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#97

Post by sunshine-o »

fragmede wrote: post #47
vGPU wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve actually found that ESPHome is sufficient for most basic use cases

The question then is where have you found ESPHome to fall short?

ESPHome is great for most use cases.

But there are things they won't touch it seems, like LoRa support.

Also I might be wrong but so far I don't think you can leverage cool things like ESP-NOW (yet).

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#98

Post by hmottestad »

boffinAudio wrote: post #95
finnjohnsen2 wrote: post #13

I wasnt aware of this wifi blob. This feeds a tiny paranoia I have at the back of my head when dealing with esp32/espressif. I have dozens of esp32s around and I love them, but Espressif is 100% Chinese. Im uncomfortable with what I read that every company of significant size in China automatically requires CCP party members to be involved in the company at a high level. So Im very happy to hear people such as these…

Your paranoia about the Chinese is equally applicable to Americans, whose NSA has given itself carte-blanche to infiltrate any computing system it desires, for whatever reason, in total secrecy - without recourse for the public to address any wrongs. So I'm not sure that framing your paranoia in terms of "the Chinese" is productive - you might just want to update that thought with "any state actor who operates covert…

I think that US agencies are not as interested in stealing trade secrets or harming US companies as other countries would be.

Re: Unveiling secrets of the ESP32: creating an open-source MAC layer

#100

Post by boffinAudio »

hmottestad wrote: post #98
boffinAudio wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your paranoia about the Chinese is equally applicable to Americans, whose NSA has given itself carte-blanche to infiltrate any computing system it desires, for whatever reason, in total secrecy - without recourse for the public to address any wrongs. So I'm not sure that framing your paranoia in terms of "the Chinese" is productive - you might just want to update that thought with "any state actor who operates covert…

I think that US agencies are not as interested in stealing trade secrets or harming US companies as other countries would be.

I think that is a very, very naive point of view. There are countless examples of this happening - probably they're not on your radar because your nation was the recipient of the stolen goods ..

The USA regularly uses its intelligence apparatus to undermine economy and industry in other countries. I would even say, at a far greater rate, with worse results (for the targets) than anything China or Russia are doing ..

The mass violation of human rights for billions of people (literally) that occurs every millisecond of the day at Pine Gap on behalf of the American government, for example, demonstrates that this naivete is very, very dangerous.

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